Thursday, February 14, 2008

The London(Ontario)Free Press says that Landis arbitrator Richard McLaren watched the Congressional hearing yesterday featuring the "he said, he said" testimony of Roger Clemens and Brian MacNamee. McLaren feels nothing was solved by the exercise, and that baseball needs to find an independent agency to do its drug testing.

The Boulder Report thinks that Astana shouldn't have been at all surprised by the "Valentine" it received yesterday from the ASO, that particularhandwriting has been on the wall for weeks. Joe Lindsey says that Astana was caught in the middle of the continuing turf war between the UCI and ASO:

How else to explain why Astana, which bears little resemblance to the brazen band of syringe-brandishing fuckwits who doped their way through the 2007 season, is not invited, but Rabobank, which essentially wallpapered over as serious a crime and remains largely the same in structure, gets a nod. To be sure, Rabobank is not yet in the clear, and Wednesday’s announcement was pointedly not about who is in the Tour, but who is not. But at this point, Astana is the only team on the outside looking in.

The CyclingNews posts a "special edition" on the Astana/ASO story with detailed reactions from some of the players and analysis of what this may mean to other cyclists who will ride the 2008 TdF.In the first update of the day CyclingNews reports Christian Prudhomme's justifications for the ASO's exclusion of Astana from this year's Tour de France:

We cannot wipe away what happened these last two years," Prudhomme explained. "We don't have the right to have a short memory. In 2006, a team came out of the ashes of Liberty Seguros. Within this team, half of the riders were linked to Operation Puerto and cannot take the start of the Tour. The next year, they explain to us that it's a new team, a new management, that everything about it is new. We trust them and invite them to the Tour. But we made a mistake to take them - and we don't want to make that mistake once again."

About the inclusion in ASO events of the troubled Rabobank squad Prudhomme rationalizes:

Speaking to Dutch AD, Prudhomme added that ASO had also pondered the exclusion of Rabobank, which made headlines last July with overall leader Michael Rasmussen being withdrawn from the race for having lied about his whereabouts and missed doping controls. "We hesitated, but came to the conclusion that it was Rasmussen and his boss [Theo De Rooy - ed.] that harmed the Tour, and not the sponsor," he said. "They made the decision to pull him out of the race a bit late, but they did. The sponsor made that gesture even if there wasn't a positive control. Today, Rasmussen is suing them for having been sacked without a reason."

The NY Times reports on the presence of top steroid investigator Jeff Novitzky at Roger Clemens' Congressional hearing held yesterday. It is likely that if Clemens is pursued further by the government Novitzky will be the catalyst:

Novitzky has (also) become the most expert agent in the Department of Justice on steroid investigations. He helped secure a conviction of Marion Jones for lying to federal agents, and his work led to perjury charges against Barry Bonds.

PEZ, of all places, takes a hard line that the riders had better stand up for themselves in an organized fashion. Union, Yes!

Velonews says Puerto is going to be re-opened, but this isn't official (yet).The CyclingNews confirms that OP WILL be reopened. When will it all end?

The biggest doping investigation in international cycling – Operación Puerto – was called to be re-opened on Saint Valentine's Day, February 14, in Madrid. A Spanish court ordered that the blood doping investigation, which first hit the headlines in May 2006 and was shelved by Judge Antonio Serrano in March 2007, be re-visited according to Spanish paper El País.

BlogsCFA says the ASO , if it wanted "revenge" by snubbing Astana from any of its event this year, better dig two graves because the retribution it gets might wind up being its own demise.

Racejunkie thinks that the ASO epitomizes hypocrisy by excluding Astana from all of its events while inviting Rabobank which is largely unchanged from last year.

Rant's writes his take on all of he "drama" yesterday embodied by the Congressional Clemens hearing over who said what and did what, and the ASO exclusion of Astana from all of its races this year.

Running and Rambling paraphrases and comments on an article about how sex might alter athletic performance, and feels Floyd Landis may have missed a great opportunity to use IT as an excuse for his AAF in the 2006 Tour de France.

The Fat Cyclistmay just be feeling his age. Hang in there Fatty, it's a BIG boat!

Sara Best thinks the ASO's shunning of Astana is certainly no Valentine. And she gives some useful email addresses to express your appreciation:

If you disagree with the ASO's decision and you want to let them know, here are a few email addresses to get you started. Tell them how you feel. It's a private organization and they have the power to change any decision they want.

Landis SightingsFloyd has apparently been doing his own training camp near Idyllwild in So Cal, in the mountain range between home in Murrietta and Palm Springs. The climb from the west is a smooth unrelenting grade suitable for a practice time-trial suffer-fest, the other side more technical. Folks at Chris McCormack's camp have been running into him (also here):

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comments:

I must say that this is the final straw for me. I had intended to watch this year's TDF despite what had happened last year and the events surrounding Floyd, but now I can't justify lending my eyeballs (hence advertising justification) to the TDF anymore. For many years I avidly followed the race on-line when at work and on OLN (now VS) when at home to the exclusion of nearly all other programming (the wife likes biking, but not that much!). I can't see much point in spending all that time and energy if the favorites are all going to be eliminated on such spurious grounds. I was quite upset about the whole Rasmussen thing last year, but didn't switch the remote. No need to switch this year, I will simply never turn it on. Hopefully my protest isn't alone.

Just to make sure I understand this correctly...T-Mobile discontinues sponsership due to doping scandals, but Astana chooses to stay and support cycling in spite of the bad press. Team High Road hasn't been excluded, but Astana has...makes sense to me. Seriously, what is the ASO thinking?! The events of last year's TDF were disappointing, but like mitakeet, I didn't turn off the race either. But why would I want to watch this year's race when 3 major contenders are already out through no fault of their own? This just makes me sad. Oh well, Vive le Tour of California!

UCI (McQuaid) says the 18 ProTour teams must be invited to the 2008 TdF. ASO (Prudhomme) says, “non”. To punctuate the sentiment he metaphorically sticks his finger in the eye of Astana.

It has little to do with deterrence or retribution. It has nothing to do with doping, especially if biological passports and a ~$500,000 worth of Damsgaard’s anti-doping program buys you anything of value.

Yeah, it’s outrageous, but that’s kind of the point. The schoolyard bully (ASO) is asserting his/her (Prudhomme is kind of feminine) dominance. If this is going to change, someone is going to have to treat the bully to a beat down. The UCI (McQuaid) doesn’t have the stuff. The ProTour teams are not unified and the riders also have divided interests.

So, ASO has laid it out there. They are saying they will do as they please and no one is going to stop them. Judge Hue is right. The riders desperately need a union. I’m just mystified as to when the peloton might show up at an important ASO race and decline to ride. ASO is playing the teams and riders like a violin. So far, they’ve taken care not to piss them off so much so as to cause a unified strike. How much more does it take before the riders and teams say enough is enough.

And shame on Jonathan Vaughters. Looks kind of like that boy gave his all for Slipstream on the ASO casting couch.

I'll watch the Tour this year for the same reason I did last year. To watch the train wreck. I enjoyed it more when I was watching for the sport, but watching the train wreck has me mezmerized and I can't quite tear myself away.

I've justified it by convincing myself that watching this train wreck isn't quite as bad as avidly watching the OJ Simpson trial. At least there is still pretty scenery along the roads.

Total Poindexter Website Prize: to the fabulous geniuses over at trustbutverify, who not only are perhaps the most impassioned defenders of Floyd Landis' virtue beyond only the boy himself, but actually seem to understand the detailed scientific arguments they put out that the rest of us (well, me) are too stupid to even coherently summarize. Floyd, you better be innocent, or you owe these folks a *major* freakin' apology! (racejunkie)

"Who does awards for blogs? I sense a nomination is in order." (Carlton Reid, of BikeBiz)

"Hands-down champion of full-and I mean full-coverage of this hearing is the blog Trust But Verify. You'll have to have excellent background knowledge of the issues, and wade through page after page of detail to get to anything interesting, but it's raw and unfiltered and all there. The guy who runs the site, a cycling fan from Northern California, began casually providing a clearinghouse for Landis case news nearly 10 months ago, and now he has the haunted look of a man whose life has been hijacked and wants it back. (Loren Mooney, co-author of Positively False, at Bicycling)

"if you want the latest news on the Floyd Landis case, Trust but Verify is the go-to site. The author is biased in favor of Floyd (so am I) but the reporting is neutral and comprehensive." (12string musings)

About Me

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TBV is personally biased towards Floyd. I think it'll be a better world if he proves his innocence, and some inquisitors meet their own just ends. Interspersed between daily link roundups are pieces of commentary slanted towards understanding what will prove innocence in the discipline proceeding, and what will rehabilitate his reputation in the public eye. Make of them what you will. Agreement with me is not required, though I am right.